Welcome to Wonderland
by White Mage Koorii
Summary: Oneshot; Four meetings in which there are scared aunts, chocolate, honorary Weasleys, and socks.


**Warnings:** Inexplicable!Crossover

**A/N**: If I had to guess, I'd say that someone ate a portkey cupcake that Mundungus Fletcher left laying about where he shouldn't have, and this is the sticky results.

Oh, and, it's been years since I've written/watched/read Harry Potter, so I've probably mauled the characters something awful. Forgive me?

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**Welcome to Wonderland**

**words: 4393**

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**Harry & L**

As usual Aunt Petunia's shriek wakes Harry from a sound sleep, though this time the dream had been about playing Quidditch in the dungeons with Snape chasing after them on a Horntail. It takes Harry about half a second to realize that the shriek isn't her usual call to breakfast, but something tainted with fear. By the time it has registered, he's across the room and still fumbling on his glasses while his nerves spit and spark like the broken ends of a live wire.

Harry takes the stairs three at a time, and jumps the last four to land, cat like, at the foot of them. He fumbles for his pocket and his wand, heart hammering triple time only to realize, when his fingers skate along his hip bones, that he doesn't have his wand with him. No, he's still wearing the oversized pair of pug patterned sleep pants that Aunt Marge had gotten Dudley for his birthday two years ago. Dudley hadn't liked them so, of course, Harry had gotten them. Dudley _had_ liked that.

Torn now between going back upstairs to get his wand and the impeccable curiosity that urges him forward, Harry waivers. Another gasping, gurgling, caught in the throat shriek comes from the kitchen, and it makes up his mind before he even realizes it. Harry's bare toes catch on the thin carpet, an ounce of caution keeping his rash stupidity from barreling into the room without a second thought. With fingers that creak with tension, Harry edges the swinging door open and peers through the millimeter crack. He can immediately see Aunt Petunia, flattened against the cabinets, fingers spread like spider legs against the wood. Her wide eyes make her look more like a horse than ever, a spooked one at that, though the way her mouth is soundlessly moving reminds him of those pop-eyed gold fish.

The pristine white molding of the door frame digs into Harry's cheek as he presses against it in an attempt to see whatever has set his Aunt off. A part of him hopes that it's just a spider or a mouse, or maybe a terrier sized rat like he once heard Dudley's friends claim lived in New York. What he does see, however, is none of these, nor is it Voldemort's best and brightest.

Harry's head collides with the door he's poking open in shock, and before he can stop himself, he's stumbled into the kitchen. The linoleum is cool against the soles of his feet, but he's too busy gaping at the weird man curled in Uncle Vernon's preferred chair to notice the state of his toes growing cold. This man-boy-thing, who can't be much older than Harry is himself, looks like someone turned Dobby into a human and dressed him in some of Dudley's cast offs. Briefly, Harry entertains the idea that he's dreamed himself into some fantasy world like Aunt Petunia's dramas, and this is his evil twin come to take over.

The boy-creature sits there, hunched like the gargoyle in front of Professor Dumbledore's office for several seconds, staring in wide-eyed bemusement at Harry's aunt, before turning his great dark eyes on Harry himself. Harry stares back, transfixed by that stare. He is once more reminded of Dobby's great tennis ball eyes. Only, he notes faintly, these are like the dark tunnels of Snape's eyes. This, of course, gives him a horrendous mental image and the urge to vomit. Harry expects he must have gone a little green around the gills, because the gargoyle-house elf-human at the Dursley's kitchen table tilts his head in perplexity and what might have been vague concern. His spidery, pale hands are tapping a tuneless rhythm against his denim clad knees. Voldemort like hands, Harry thinks. Ew. Ew. Ew. That mental image is getting worse.

"Erm," Harry says quite intelligently. He casts a nervous glance at Aunt Petunia who is making weird little _pop-hiccup_ sounds that might start to be worrying soon. When he looks back at the weird kid at the table, Harry finds that he, apparently, hasn't blinked. He's reminded of Hedwig for a moment before he pushes it aside, clears his throat, and tries again, "Can I, uh, help you?"

The thing that Harry is certain must have escaped from Hagrid's tender care, considers him for a moment with a reptilian tilt of his head. Harry thinks that maybe his head is going to turn all the way upside down, like an owl's, then he thinks that the rat's nest he has for hair might be worse than Harry's own. Nervously, Harry smooths at his hair and shuffles a little closer to the table. At last, the weirdo says, "I seem to have misplaced a few things that are important to me. I believe that you can help me retrieve them." Then, the whack job pauses, hooks his thumb below his upper lip until it's poking up enough to shove his left nostril off course, and adds, "I also appear to have misplaced myself."

Harry tugs out one of the chairs and slumps into it, the rolled up cuffs of his pants sliding down over his feet as if to warm them. He stares of a moment, then passes a hand over his face and smiles wryly, "Yeah, why not?"

It's just another weird occurrence in the life of Harry Potter.

"What did you lose? Er, other than yourself, I mean," he asks, then as an afterthought, he adds, "My name's Harry Potter. Who're you?" That, probably should have been the first thing he asked, but somehow he can't help but think this is too bizarre even for Voldemort.

Around his thumb, the hunched boy mumbles, "Lucas Hatter."

**Remus & Mello**

Remus is sitting at the scrubbed wooden table in Grimmauld's lifeless kitchen, if for no other reason than it's a safe haven for a moment. He's tired, the full moon only behind him by a night or two, and willing to put up with painful memories for a safe place to hide. Here, at least, he only has to worry about the other members of the Order of the Phoenix invading. Still, with the shadows of Sirius still creeping around the corners, he can't help but feel like _he's_ invading. All the same, he pushes himself up out of the chair, which squeaks plaintively against the dark stone of the floor, and shuffles over toward the heavy, dark wood cupboards.

He pulls them open, and smiles faintly at the sight that greets him. At the very least, Molly Weasley always makes sure that the shelves here are stocked, and she remembered to have his favorite Honeyduke's chocolate waiting for him though she's not here herself. He pulls it off, weighing the block of chocolate in his hands and not finding it wanting, All is as usual in this, even if it isn't in the rest of the world which is mildly comforting. There is nothing, in Remus Lupin's opinion, that makes the world a little brighter than a good pound or so of chocolate. It's as he's heading back toward the table with his prize that he hears it: A sound like footsteps pattering upstairs. Remus freezes, listening to all the sounds creepy old houses like to make.

Somewhere, he can hear walls settling, while in another direction something sounds like it's scratching inside the walls, and in another still the pipes grumble and clang without remorse. Grimmauld place has always felt like it was going to swallow him whole and never let him out alive.

Remus shakes his head, and tosses the thought aside. Maybe it's Kreacher sneaking back in to remove more heirlooms, or some other rancorous creature they've not yet managed to oust. He sets his block of chocolate on the table, and turns to acquire a butter knife from the drawer. He pauses again, as the sound of the third stair from the first floor landing creaking sails down the halls, down into the kitchen, and assaults his ears. Nothing else follows, and Remus easily dismisses it as another sound in a house of sounds. It was quite noisy for something that was trying so hard to hide.

With a jerk he pulls open the draw and rattles around until he finds what he wants, plucks it out, then turns, only for his other hand to fly to his chest as a gasp flies from his mouth and nearly chokes him. A small blond haired boy, no more than eight years old, is now occupying a chair on the far side of the table. He's kneeling in it, his nose even with the grainy wood, and his eyes staring at the block of foil encased chocolate as if he's never seen anything quite so wonderful in his life.

Remus is brandishing the aged, silver knife like a wand.

"How did you get in here?" he asks, mind scrambling in terror. Did the Fidelius Charm fall? Was Dumbledore dead? Had Dumbledore let this boy in here for some inane reason and failed to let everyone else know?

The boy shrugs, his corn-silk hair rippling about his face. A few strands catch on the table when he presses the bridge of his nose against the edge. Then he looks up and stares at Remus through eyes that are more wild than the ones he sees in the mirror when he has to shave. Somehow, seeing eyes like those in a thing so tiny and frail looking is a hundred times more terrifying. "Are you going to open it?" the boy demands in a voice that is somehow imperious yet petulant.

Remus steps over and sinks slowly into his chair. The boy watches his every move, fingers curled eagerly over the edge of the table, and waits. There's a slight shift to his posture that Remus speculates means he's wiggling in anticipation. Remus obligingly slams the handle of the knife against the top of the chocolate hard enough to fracture it just the way he likes, then peels open the foil. The boy lifts his head off the edge of the table and leans forward, tongue caught between his teeth.

"Who are you?" Remus tries.

"Mitchell March," the boy says, then, getting back to the obviously important fact, "I'm going to eat half of that, maybe the whole thing. It depends on how much you eat first."

Somehow, Remus thinks that sounds entirely reasonable, and makes a grab for a chunk of chocolate at the same time the boy does.

**Fred, George, & Matt**

The day has, so far, been normal enough, if not a little slow around the shop. George has long since given up pretending to be professional and is playing with one of their products: A derivative of the yo-yo that doesn't rebound for exactly five seconds after it falls, and when it does it bounces up to hit the yo-yo-er in the face. George, of course, is playing a game of timing and trying to dodge it. Fred, keeping score for him, has thus far given it a two to six ratio. The yo-yo is in the lead.

People aren't visiting in the same swirling crowds that they were before. If he thought he stood a chance against the man, Fred would put an end to You-know-who himself. After all, it's just bad business ruining a chaps, well, business the way he is. They don't have it quite as bad as most of the shops on Diagon Alley. Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes is the medicine that the magical world desperately needs: It is levity and laughter. It is a port in the darkening stormy seas of the political climate of fear that You-know-who has so easily cultivated just through confirmation of his return.

The yo-yo bounces off George's forehead with a pronounced _sproing_, and blows a lively raspberry. George returns the insult with something a great deal more vocal, and much less polite.

"Y'know what we should do?" Fred asks once he's finished laughing at his twin. "We ought to go get lunch at the Leaky."

George looks around with an exaggerated air, the yo-yo clutched placidly between his curled fingers. The empty store greets him, a yawning cavern of teetering shelves loaded with a gazillion pranks for all ages and situations. Then George looks at his watch, boggles for a moment, and says, "D'you think anyone will mind terribly?" The rotten grin on his face belies the demure words.

Fred mirrors his grin and strokes his chin, then takes a moment to consider growing a properly villainish goatee. He discards the idea as quickly as it comes and responds, "I think we ought to be alright if we hurry back sharpish after."

"Then I forward your proposal to the committee. What say the committee?" George returns with an air of overdone nobility.

Fred's hand slams down on the counter with a bang, and the till rattles slightly. He eyes it a moment to make sure it doesn't decide to explode as many things in the shop are wont to do, then declares, "The committee approves of this expedition. Shall we set off immediately?"

They shall indeed, as George whipped out his wand and summoned their coats– Violently purple dragon hide, of course. Fred snatches his out of the air before George can get the bright idea to put it atop a shelf with something that can bite, and they 'shall'ed right out of the shop before 'shall'ing off along Diagon Alley. It was as they 'shall'ed by the boarded up facade of depression that is Florean Fortescue's that George stops in his diatribe about the necessity of disappearing handkerchiefs, and Fred is caught up in imagining the look on their mum's face if she knew they were wandering about so blatant and brashly, that they notice him.

He's hard to miss, really, dressed the way he is. The clothing is very muggle, but very peculiar: A yellow and black striped shirt that makes him look like he fell out of a Hufflepuff tapestry, denim shorts, and a pair of goggles perched atop his head in a way that made his darkish brown hair spike hither and thither like that of the Weasley's favorite adopted family member. He's perched there, on a chair by one of the ice cream parlor's abandoned outdoor tables, smacking a green rectangle of a device against his palm with apparent frustration.

Fred glances up and down the alley in search of the kid's parents, or group, or anything, but the place is more or less abandoned. He can't be more than six, maybe seven, yet there he is bold as sunshine and without an apparent care in the world. Fred glances over at George who picks at a bit of dust on the lapel of his coat, and shrugs his shoulders in a way that is obviously a nonverbal cue for Fred to take the lead and do as he pleases.

The pair of them amble over to the abandoned shop, and Fred hedges around the table to peer over the boy's shoulder while George slithers up along his other side. The rectangle he apparently has a grudge against has a flat square of gray at its top that reminds Fred of the screen on a television that muggles are so fond of. It's also got buttons, one of which is shaped a little like a Celtic cross.

"Well, me likkle mate," George says, affecting a wheedling, slightly obnoxious tone of voice. "What's got your knickers in a twist?"

"It doesn't work," the boy says with a faint trill of indignation to his voice. He apparently isn't concerned that two strangers are standing over his shoulders. Fred exchanges another look with George.

"Where are your parents?" Fred asks.

"Haven't got any," the boy says frankly, as he flips over the device and opens a door on the back. "These batteries are brand new. I don't know why they don't _work_."

"Can I have a look at it?" George asks even as he reaches for it. The boy looks up at last, a dubious and suspicious look glancing through his eyes before he hands the device over.

"Don't drop it," he warns.

"So," Fred hedges in. "If you haven't got any parents who are you here with?"

"No one," the boy replies, gaze never wavering as George investigates his device. "I'm waiting, I suppose. They'll come and get me eventually."

Fred nods as if he understands, while George grumbles, "If it disturbs you so much, you can hold on to this while I look at it. That's a fair trade, right?" Then he hands over the yo-yo he'd brought with him, and Fred wants to tell George that he'd thought they were above picking on little kids.

It's too late, though, and the kid lets the yo-yo fly. However, when it bounces back up it flies right over him and clobbers George between the eyes again. Fred is so breathless with laughter that he barely notices the boy's own. When he's calmed, and George is no longer giving him the evil eye while ruthlessly rubbing his face, Fred ruffles the kid's hair until his goggles fall down over his nose and end up around his neck. "You're alright, kid," he says, amused. "By the way, what's your name?"

"Michael Catone," says the boy without missing a beat, his feet swinging scant inches above the ground. Despite this, Fred is pretty sure he can smell a lie, though he doesn't ask. Instead he decides that they might as well keep an eye on the sprog until whoever he's waiting for shows up. Feeling a bit puckish, he takes out his wand and raps it against the top of the kid's head.

"For now you're an honorary Weasley," Fred declares in his best Pompous Percy voice. "After all, you got one of the masters of disaster."

Somehow, he thinks, the kid looks alright with his hair violently ruby and the yellow stripes gone Gryffindor red.

**Snape, Dumbledore, Dobby, & Near**

The moment the headmaster's Patronus arrived and bid him come to the castle, come to Dumbledore's office, Severus could feel a headache beginning to bloom. He'd sneered, stalked about his ramshackle home to make sure nothing important was out where Pettigrew could get his well bitten fingers on it, then quit the place in a flurry of dark robes. From one dark, dank alley to the thankfully dry road leading to Hogwart's entrance gates he'd gone with a mere pop, then swept up, passed the winged boar statues, and onward up the sweeping lawns. The beauty of the summer day was lost on him, neatly ignored and sacrificed to the cynical pit of his mind. His boots snap cleanly on the stone as he strides up the stairs and blows through the shadowy line of the barely open front doors. They loom at his back like the wooden wings of a predatory bird, and Snape viciously refrains from hunching his shoulders at the watched feeling it gives him.

Up through the halls and stairways he's followed by the absent mutterings of the portraits and the sound of his own boot heels. He brings himself to stand before the gargoyle that guards the headmaster's office where he meets its stone glare tit for tat. His lips curl back off his teeth and he hisses the password as if it has personally offended him. It has.

There is no other reason that Severus Snape would ever utter a word such as _Chocoballs,_ after all.

He steps forward onto the bottom stair of the upward curving stairwell which immediately begins to shuttle him upward. Severus takes the last few moments to forcefully will down the building migraine through a combination of sheer stubbornness, Occulmency, and a mercifully high pain threshold. When he steps off the stairs, he pauses before the double doors because they're cracked open. While this isn't hugely unusual for the summer months, the fact that voices are floating out of the office is a little more strange. He does not think that Dumbledore is so old that he would forget Severus' imminent arrival, and he wonders if the man is, perhaps, chatting with the former headmasters and mistresses, or even to Fawkes. For a moment, Snape is nostalgically assaulted by the memory of his years as a student here, and the few times he's ended up in this very place after getting some of his own back against Potter and his pals.

Severus has all of three seconds to bask in the remembered glow of satisfaction before a line of conversation drifts through, snatches it away, and tosses it into the ever burning fires of his own personal hell and aggravation.

"Cotton," Dumbledore's voice says gravely, "are all well and good, but true happiness is found only in a wool toe sock on each foot."

Severus tries not to choke on his own saliva which he has just tried to inhale.

"Dobby has a pair of toe socks, headmaster sir," a squeaky house elf voice declares. "They are _rainbow_ pattern."

"You must be very proud of them," Dumbledore replies. "What about you, my boy?"

The voice that responds is not one that Snape has ever heard in his life: It is quiet, monotone, and perfectly flat, but the register is high and childish. "Wool is good in winter, however I prefer something thinner in the summer."

Dumbledore chuckles, then pauses. "Ah, a moment if you would, gentlemen?" Severus hears sounds of assent, before Dumbledore's omnipresent voice addresses the doors behind which he lurks. "Severus, why don't you join us?"

Severus' well trained instincts from years of spying scream at him to _run, run away, you fool!, _but he sneers at them, shoves them into a mental mud puddle, and ignores them. He steps through the doors in a flutter of plain black cotton robes, and immediately regrets it. In an instance his dark eyes take in the tableau laid out before him like a bizarre painting in a bizarre gallery. There before the golden grate of the headmaster's fire place Dumbledore sits, perched in a squashy armchair alongside a table loaded with tea things, across from him is another chair that is more strict and straight backed, and, Severus supposes with horrifying certainty, meant for him.

Sitting on a stool is a house elf wearing the usual Hogwart's uniform, but also tiny knitted hats in various clashing colors and some of the most offensive socks Severus has ever seen. They are lime green and covered in happy little violently pink bears. Automatically, as if he can't quite help himself, Severus glances at Dumbledore's own socks where they peek out from under the hem of his robes: They're purple and black striped with twinkling stars all over them, and don't match at all with the powder blue robes he's wearing today. The robes have, he notes absently, clouds on them that drift and change like real clouds in the sky.

Magic, some snide part of him decides, has gone too far. He might as well off himself now and spare the world the trouble.

Then, of course, he remembers the unknown occupant and looks. He looks down, and down, to the floor where, pale and fragile looking, a boy who is probably around five years old is kneeling among an array of Dumbledore's silver gadgets. He's watching one as it clicks away, tiny centaurs, phoenixes, thestrals, and dragons suspended on wires fluttering about it like a reverse mobile. Beside it, another one sends out tiny puffs of color changing smoke that turn into rings as they float upward.

When the white haired child looks up, his eyes are as dark as the ones Severus often sees in the mirror. The unnerving part is that the child does not look away from him, but calmly meets his gaze. Severus can feel himself being measured, calculated, and diced up like potion's ingredients as the boy seeks out his worth. He is terrifyingly aware that the boy will find him wanting, so he glares. The boy, undaunted, merely lifts his hand and begins to wind a lock of his snow pale hair around his index finger.

Severus turns to stare at the headmaster again, who, of course, merely smiles guilelessly at him when he demands, "You called me here, Headmaster?"

"Yes, yes, of course. I wanted to discuss the Defense position with you. Won't you have a seat?" Dumbledore responds amiably. Snape's heart leaps, at the same time that his paranoia stutters.

He turns to gaze at the boy on the floor again, and finds that he has not once looked away from him. He expects he hasn't blinked. In the moment of silence that falls like snowflakes between them all, the house elf hums and kicks his socked feet. Severus presses his lips together to keep back the defensive sneer that wants to surface. "And who," he asks silkily, "may I ask is he?"

The boy's face transforms, a small smile suddenly curving his lips as he leans forward. Severus feels oddly cornered, and thinks that a boy that small should not feel so predatory. It's the smile, of course, which is creepy enough to classify on par with that of the Dark Lord's look of thin lipped satisfaction. When the boy speaks, it's in that same quiet tone of voice, but there's a little something like traps and tricks and a joke in his tone, but all he says is, "_I _am the dormouse."

**Bonus**

When they've gone, left the magical world behind, and returned to whatever strange place whence they came, the only reminder that they'd ever been there is an eerie sense of confusion and bemusement. The only physical reminder is a single photograph that one Collin Creevey had managed to snap of the four of them. However, all of them can never be seen in the frame. As soon as it was developed, one by one, they sidled off the side and never returned.

It's as if they never existed at all.


End file.
